Giants light up the night in Sandwich

By Barbara Clark

Thursday

Dec 6, 2018 at 8:54 AMDec 6, 2018 at 8:54 AM

The Golfer is 14 feet tall, not counting the trajectory of the golf ball flying off his club. His rangy steel frame lies on the cement pavement where his creator, artist Michael Magyar, is making a few final welds. Hefty at between 70 and 80 pounds, the metal sportsman, who’ll soon be on his way to stand in front of a local golf club, is just the latest wiry creation in Magyar’s growing stable of metal Giants sculptures, now illuminating holiday nights in Sandwich and starting to travel to other areas of Cape Cod as well.

Magyar’s lively, expressive constructions now decorate many local businesses, with still others commissioned to stand outside private residences. In a dizzying variety, they range from elongated humans such as a lobsterman, firefighter or innkeeper; to marine creatures of all kinds; flowers, birds and bees; and more fanciful beings like saints and angels, Peter Rabbit, a Blue Knight (at Sandwich High School), even a stately Lady of Justice. Deliciously new this year is an18-foot Giant holding a 10-foot triple dip ice cream cone.

These eye-catching creations start at about 10 feet in height, with many at 12 or 14 feet tall. The largest, “First Night, First Light,” at 25 feet, was constructed as a “countdown” display for the Sandwich First Night celebration.

In 1998 there were just five Giants in Sandwich. The very first, a statuesque glassblower, stood 12 feet tall, holding his glowing orb of molten glass in front of Magyar’s own Glass Studio on Cape Cod.

Magyar has owned the popular glassblowing business in East Sandwich since 1992, and started creating his Giants “on the side” during the 1990s. He reached out to others to commission their own Giants at other locations, in a community-wide effort to help light up the Sandwich night during holiday time.

The artist developed guidelines for potential Giant owners. In 2008 these read, in part, that he hoped people would “come to Sandwich to see all the Giants. So far we have 6 Giants in Sandwich.”

Today the number of sculptures has grown to nearly 90 individual constructs, including 10 created just this year. These days he’s inundated with orders, and this season alone he has invested over $1,000 on more than a ton of metal rods and other parts for his in-demand creations. “Every year it just grows,” he says.

The artist now publishes an annual Giants wall calendar with a double-spread map showing locations for all the sculptures – a treat for people who would like to take a holiday drive of about an hour and view them all.

From design to construction

After he receives a commission to create a new Giant, Magyar works with each client, sketching out a scale drawing and adding it into in his now very fat sketchbook, which contains an image for each piece he’s made from 2003 onward. Each blueprint contains detailed measurements and dimensions, the name of the new sculpture, the date and customer name. Occasionally, he says, a client brings an image or drawing that generates new ideas.

After finalizing the design, Magyar draws a full-size chalk outline on the cement pavement outside his studio, and then bends a variety of metal rods to shape, laying them onto the chalk diagram.

Then let the welding begin. On hands and knees, the artist painstakingly welds each metal rod in place. “You can’t really do this all at one time because everything rolls and moves on you,” he says.

He uses an arc welder to create the spark (“like touching two wires together”), generating the high temperature that fuses the rods together. Most of the metal rods measure 3/8” or ½”, with some bigger rods at ¾” in diameter, though he uses those more sparingly because they’re so hard to bend.

Smaller rods are bent to shape using a vise. Early on he used the trunks of two dead locust trees that stood close together in his yard as a giant vise to bend the larger rods, but the shrubbery has now grown up around them, cutting off his access.

Magyar welds one side, then flips the Giant over and welds the other. He must make sure there are no sharp edges. Once welded together, he says, “They’re strong enough so you can climb up them.” The heaviest, such as a 15 ½ x 17-foot wreath, constructed this year, can weigh upwards of 200 pounds, according to the artist.

Giants work is seasonal, but holidays are crunch time. Each giant takes up to a week to create, so Magyar devotes part of each day to his creature constructions while leaving time for his glassblowing work, often putting in hours at night. Each Giant must be carefully built with an eye to balance, weight and safety. “It’s half engineering, half common sense,” he says.

Once a Giant is delivered, complete with stabilizing ropes and stakes, the new owners can apply themselves to the all-important lighting. There’s a “big learning curve,” he says, in figuring out how to achieve the right effects. Many clients look for expert help on the lighting, which he says can be “quite a job,” and he’s currently looking for someone who might fit that bill for clients. Lighting is “both real easy and very difficult,” he says. One important rule not to forget: “You need to end at the bottom.”

In his 2008 customer guidelines, Magyar wrote, “If you decide not to use the Giant for the season I would want you to give it to someone who would display it and keep it alive.” And it does seem as if some of these displays have found new life, in a nice way.

The illuminated “375” sign Magyar created for Barnstable’s 375th anniversary, now welded into a triangular shape and wrapped in quarter-inch metal for stability, resides in the public open space called “725 Main” in Hyannis.

A colorful dragonfly, which originally stood (or flew) in front of a local gallery, has found a new home at a local private residence.

Baseball guy “Teddy Red Socks,” who formerly stood at the plate in front of a Sandwich baseball card shop, is currently looking for a new home, now that the shop owner has retired.

Several Giants have begun filtering across the line into Barnstable, and this year three new sculptures have popped up in Orleans. We may be witnessing the beginning of a “trail of Giants,” and perhaps only they know where it may lead.

This winter, Magyar plans to write a book about these light-filled creations and their history here – including, he says, how these Giants “can change and develop.”

LEARN MORE

Michael Magyar can be reached at 508-888-6681. His email is michaelmagyar@comcast.net.

The Glass Studio on Cape Cod is located at 470 Route 6A, East Sandwich. Website: www.capecodglass.net/